National Geographic Photographer and Speaker

Keyword: geographic

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Chincua Mountain near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle–Already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Wasatch Range and Brigham City, Utah, one of a string of Mormon communities originally settled by handpicked craftsmen, laborers, and school teachers, who arrived in 1847, redirecting mountain streams for farming.

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Criss-crossed by the shadows of containment bars in the back of a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle, a ten-year-old boy is driven back to his hometown of Matamoros after being caught sneaking into Brownsville, Texas.

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An aloe plant in an aloe field, where many of the workers are resident aliens, Mexican citizens with green cards allowing them to work in the United States. The aloe leaves will be processed into ointments, cosmetics, and beverages after harvest.

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Surrounded by a mountain of maroon sweatshirts, top seamstress Rolanda Vasquez Hernandez assembles more sweatshirts to add to the pile. The sign above her head indicates that she meets or exceeds 100 percent of her production goal at the Nova/Link plant, a “maquiladora,” or assembly plant.